


An Unfinished Life

by LovelySilverwood (Eanna23je)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Jonrya Week, Mentions of Cancer, Personification of Death, References to Depression, the Meet Joe Black AU no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24192670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eanna23je/pseuds/LovelySilverwood
Summary: The shadow-cloaked god waited for me to collect my wits, before coming a step closer. “You promised to do anything for your sister,” they said. “Would you give me your soul in exchange for hers?”~For Jonrya Week 2020 Dream of Spring Day 1 Prompt: Death
Relationships: Jon Snow/Arya Stark
Comments: 20
Kudos: 42
Collections: Jonrya Week: A Dream of Spring





	1. Chapter 1

“Come close, _closer_ , and listen to the tale. Of Lord Death, and how he stole for his bride the daughter of Spring. And how they united both realms in unholy matrimony…” my voice trailed off as I noticed a lull in the once-steady beeping of the life support machine. 

I gripped the book tighter and watched that line flatten one awful moment before it picked up once more. A long breath passed my chapped lips and I finally lowered my arms to the corner of the hospital bed. 

What was left of my sister’s once-brilliant red hair was a lank brown beneath the hospital bed lamp. Sansa hadn’t opened her eyes in three days, not since her last round of chemo failed, and she’d fallen into a coma soon after. 

She’d refused to shave it off, even after clumps began to fall out. It was one of the last times I remember laughing with my sister. _“Braid it for me,”_ she’d teased. 

We both knew I was shit at braiding, too used to keeping my hair hacked short. But I’d done my best to weave the dry strands into something manageable. 

_“No,”_ Sansa had laughed at my frustration, _“like this,”_ and then showed me, with fumbling, too-weak fingers, how to plait it over her shoulder. 

The braid was nearly undone, and I was too afraid to attempt fixing it without her. My gaze unwillingly slipped from her messy braid, over the waxy pallor of her once pristine skin, and to the many tubes and wires attached to her face. Sansa had stopped breathing on her own two days ago, and my family and I had taken turns sitting with her ever since. 

It was the horror-movie ending to what should have been a beautiful life for my sister. Sansa was in the top ten percent of her class, in her final year as a theater student at Old Town University. She’d been dating a nice guy and had the love of the campus and all of Winterfell behind her. Until her first round of chemo failed.

I should hate this— _and I_ _did_ —but after I’d stayed home to help take care of her, for the first time in our lives, we’d truly become sisters. To have come so close, after so much pain, felt like a gift and a curse. 

I blinked back tears and propped Sansa’s favorite book, _A Dream of Spring_ , onto the bed. “Suppose you don’t need me to read this to you, _again_ , yeah?” I whispered.

I listened to the steady beat of the heart monitor and covered her cold hand in mine. “You already know how the story ends, after all. The princess saves her people, and becomes a great queen… just like you always wanted.”

I swallowed back an unwelcome sob as I leaned my elbows over the bed, and clutched her hand to my chest. “I know you’re tired. I know you just want to go to stay asleep, but…” I squeezed my eyes shut and drew in a shuddering breath. “Please, don’t leave me alone. You were right about me, San. I _am_ selfish. But it’s not fucking fair that _you_ go and I stay. It’s not right.” 

My tears stained the yellowed pages of Sansa’s book. It had been a name day gift from Robb. _Oh, gods_ , Robb was in even worse shape than Catelyn at this point. 

“Some say the Starks are cursed,” I whispered to the pages. “Father lost his entire bloody family except for Uncle Benjen. And then Jon…” 

I sank lower, pressing my forehead to her fist. “I wish so much this hadn’t happened to you. I wish you could have the life you always dreamed of. I swear to the gods, San, if there was anything I could do to make this all go away—to make you _well_ …”

I closed my eyes again and bit my cracked lip until it bled, and _wished_ with all my heart there was another way. 

“What would you do?” a deep, velvety voice slipped through the shadows.

I jolted as I stood and turned to face the empty room, Sansa’s hand still clasped tightly in mine. 

“What the seven hells?” I hissed, blinking at the dimmed lighting in the room. 

It was the middle of the night. Faint city lights winked from beyond the hospital window, and softly drifting Summer snow rained from gray moonlit clouds. 

There was no one else in the room with us. But then, why was I reaching for the switchblade I kept in my back pocket? Why did the shadows seem too thick in the corner beside the window? Why was my heart still racing? 

“What would you do?” The deep, faintly rasping voice was louder, more real than before. “What would you be willing to sacrifice, to save your sister’s life?”

I pulled the blade free from my pocket and kept my thumb poised at the trigger. I didn’t move my gaze from the too-deep shadows. “I swear to the gods if you don’t come into the light...” 

What I’d hoped to sound intimidating was barely more than a whisper. I held my breath and my sister’s hand, ready to gut the bastard that thought to fuck with us. 

Nothing prepared me for the shadows to pull together into a tall, solid cloaked form. 

The being stepped out of the corner and brought the darkness with them. The hood of their cowl hid an emptiness that should have exposed at least their neck and chin. Instead, there was _nothing_.

The regulated heating in Sansa’s hospital room dropped in the space between me and this _thing_ standing vigil before us. 

“Who are you?” I snapped. Fear made me braver than I should have been. Then again, I’d never reacted to things the way I should have. 

The _thing’s_ hood ducked lower, as something between a chuckle and sound of wood crumbling to ashes escaped them. “You already know who I am, Arya.”

I bit my lip, wincing at the sting, at the too-real reminder of blood—that _this was real_. “Clearly I don’t know, or I wouldn’t have asked.”

The figure straightened, and I could almost make out the shape of something within the void. “You have called to the gods, and the gods have heard your prayer.”

I shook my head. “But I didn’t—”

“I came here tonight, to collect your sister’s soul, Arya Stark,” the voice interrupted. 

“No!” A choking sob escaped before I could stop it. “You can’t have her.” 

I hated crying in front of others, and even more in front of this being, this god of death. My face was cold, but the air around Sansa beside me remained warm. I was squeezing her hand too tightly, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t let go, not yet. 

I dared pull away as far as my sister’s arm would extend, my thumb rubbing over the trigger of my switchblade. “I don’t care if you’re the bloody Stranger, I’m not letting her die, not today.”

The shadow-cloaked god waited for me to collect my wits, before coming a step closer. “You promised to do anything for your sister,” they said. “Would you give me your soul in exchange for hers?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There is only one god,” my fencing master had said.  
> I realized Death was waiting for my answer. And there really was only one answer I could give. Only one answer I would always give.

The first time my sister collapsed, it was in the middle of rehearsals for her play. 

_“Too much stress,”_ the university maester had claimed. 

Until it happened again during the holiday break.

We’d been arguing. It seemed all my sister and I did since Jon… All we did was rehash the same arguments. 

_“You’re so bloody selfish, Arya!”_ she’d growled. _“Mother and Father are trying to give you the best education, but you’re throwing it back in their faces by not even trying!”_

 _“Shut up!”_ My voice was already hoarse. I hadn’t spoken this much in months, not that my family would have known. _“Don’t pretend you fucking understand. Everything always comes so easily for you, doesn’t it? You don’t have a damned clue what I’m going through.”_

Sansa had drawn in a deep breath, ready to unleash fresh vitriol from her tongue when her eyes rolled to the back of her head. 

I barely caught her before her head hit the kitchen counter. 

_“She needs to rest, Arya! You will not provoke her anymore, do you hear me?”_ Catelyn demanded after Robb and Father had settled her into bed. 

I hadn’t called Catelyn “mother” in years and barely acknowledged Sansa was my sister on campus. But being home again with them, _without Jon_ , made everything worse. Worst of all, I went to sleep that night with something like guilt stinging my chest and wondered if Sansa was right about me, after all. 

Solstice finally came, and with it, something of a silent truce between me and my sister. I clung to the shadows of the house whenever I could, but I couldn’t deny hearing my sister’s laughter was painful. 

Sansa had always glowed like the sun wherever she went, with her hair fire-kissed and eyes that striking Tully-blue. When we weren’t fighting, when I wasn’t bringing the rest of the family down apparently, Sansa filled Winterfell with her light. Everyone loved her, and though I’d never admitted it, I savored her warmth as I watched her dance around a teasing Robb in the kitchens. 

That’s when it happened.

One moment, Sansa was pulling a fresh pie from the oven next to our mother, laughing at something Robb had said. The next, the light left her eyes, her body turned limp like one of her dolls. She collapsed on the floor with a resounding _crack_. 

After came the endless appointments and tests, the maesters bantering over which of them could give a proper diagnosis. 

I held my sister’s left hand in the maester’s office, while Robb held her right. Our parents had kept their hands on her shoulders behind us. Thank gods the boys were at home with Old Nan. 

_“Brain cancer,”_ the maester then said, compassion in his weary eyes. 

Catelyn broke into sobs immediately, forcing Father to hold her with one arm, while he gripped Sansa’s shoulder with his other hand. 

Robb had buried his face in Sansa’s hair, but she’d turned to meet my gaze—Tully-blue to Stark-gray. Neither of us cried, neither surprised anymore. Sansa should have been the one to collapse in tears. This was _her life_. Instead, Sansa squeezed my hand and brought her other to thread through Robb’s curls. And then my sister smiled as if to say, _"It’ll be all right_.”

It would never be all right again.

I blinked, and the memory of the day hope died swirled away like watercolors.

Instead, there was Sansa’s limp hand in mine, and Death calmly watching us.

 _“There is only one god,”_ my fencing master had said.

I realized Death was waiting for my answer. And there really was only one answer I _could_ give. One answer I would always give. 

I closed my eyes and squeezed my sister’s hand while slipping my blade back in my pocket. 

_“And there is only one thing we say to Death,”_ Syrrio’s voice echoed in my mind as I turned and leaned over Sansa’s weak body, as close as I could reach. 

I pressed my lips to her forehead and whispered, “I want you to promise me you’ll have an _amazing_ life, San.” I smiled as I looked at my sister, seeing through the fragile shell she’d become, and remembered her for how she would be again. 

I ran a careful hand over her brittle hair as I pulled back. “Promise me you’ll do every single thing you always dreamed of, and you won’t let Cat, or Father, or fucking _anyone_ stand in your way.”

A cold hand came to rest on my shoulder. My smile became forced. “It’s going to be all right, San. That’s _my_ promise to you.”

The hand at my shoulder felt surprisingly human and preternaturally gentle for a god. “Are you ready?”

I wiped away my tears before they could fall and let my sister go. “Can I…” I hesitated, biting back the stupid request. 

“You need only ask,” Death firmly replied. 

I gaped, somewhat in awe of the unexpected... _assurance_ I felt. “I'm not ready to leave just yet. Could we...stay? Just for a little longer. Just so I _know_.”

Death drew closer, so my back was embraced in the same comfort as newly fallen snow. “Yes.”

A terrible pulling sensation stirred in my gut, drawing me nearer to Death as the world around us suddenly flickered. I barely had time to catch Death’s hand at my shoulder with mine before my body burned from this existence.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the void between spaces, for the briefest of seconds, I found relief. Whatever came next, even if it was this eternal crux between pain and peace, death and life, I knew I'd made the right choice.

The sensation of burning from the inside out ended when Death wrapped its strong arms from behind me in a cool embrace. 

“Forgive me,” they whispered against my ear, in a voice as soothing as it was unnatural. “It has been so long, I’d...forgotten how traveling feels for the first time.”

I frowned, yet slowly released my fierce grip on Death’s hand. “What do you mean, forget, and first time?” I blurted, never one for holding back. 

A gust of cool air brushed against my neck with Death’s brief silent laugh. “We aren’t here to ask questions about _me_ , Arya Stark. Look.”

I shook my head, but obeyed without compulsion or thinking, only to gasp.

The hospital room was bathed in an otherworldly light, every object trembling with the glow of endless colors. Yet it was the person slowly sitting up on the hospital bed that glowed the brightest. It hurt to look at Sansa, even though her hair was still brittle and her body weak. Her soul _beamed_ like the sun, and I would have stumbled if not for Death a solid presence against my back. 

“You see?” they whispered and I nodded, unable to reply. 

Our family was crowded around the bed. Bran and Rickon with their hands at Sansa’s feet, Rob having already crawled onto the bed to gather her in his arms. Catelyn was sobbing into her hands and seeking comfort in Father’s arms, again. 

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes as much as I couldn’t help smiling at my beautiful, _alive_ sister.

“It worked,” I breathed.

Was I still breathing? Did I need to? I should be dead. My soul for Sansa’s, that was the bargain. But Death’s hold on me was still solid, and though cold, not completely unpleasant. 

I shifted and glanced around the room until my gaze fell to the book I’d been reading to my sister. _A Dream of Spring_ had been shoved aside onto the rolling hospital tray. I frowned. “Are they worried about me?”

Death drew in a deep breath and then said, “They will not be able to see us.”

My stomach churned as I realized the truth Death hadn’t said. 

_I’m already dead._

Hadn't I been dead inside already, though? Wasn't this exactly what I had wanted in the lonely years after Jon's death? Sansa once called me selfish, for not trying harder at life. But how could I, when I'd felt half-alive? 

A pair of bright Tully-blue eyes shone with tears as my sister looked over the room. Her gaze settled on the book beside her bed, and I clawed a hand at my chest. "I'm ready to go, now," I whispered. 

Death's hand squeezed mine, the chill piercing and comforting as the first Summer snows. 

My family didn't notice as that awful burning pulling sensation to overtake me again.

In the void between spaces, for the briefest of seconds, I found relief. Whatever came next, even if it was this eternal crux between pain and peace, death and life, I knew I'd made the right choice.

I stumbled as we landed on a brilliant emerald-green lawn. Only Death’s hand at my stomach kept me upright as I straightened with a groan. I gaped as what I had _imagined_ a world of colors paled in comparison to the beauty of the land surrounding Old Town University.

I grimaced. "What are we doing here?"

Death slowly slipped its hand from my stomach and I repressed a shiver as they replied, "What you saw pained you... I thought, perhaps, you'd like to see what comes next?"

Like the hospital, everything seemed simply _more_. People, even objects glowed with varying degrees of color and light. The green of the grass was achingly beautiful, and the near-distant waves of the sea a rushing melody I shouldn’t be able to hear.

As before, I couldn’t help fixing my gaze on the people seated before us. 

“Would you like to see?” Death spoke low, their voice less gravelly than before. 

I nodded and ignored the way Death’s hand slipped easily around mine again and led me closer to the packed stage.

“Graduation,” I murmured, half in a daze as we passed the crowd of families from all houses I recognized. Everyone had wanted their children to attend Old Town. I had been one of the few students who’d at least openly hated it. 

With a sudden pang, I thought of Hot Pie, and Weasel—Gendry. I had abandoned them long before Sansa’s illness. 

_It doesn’t matter, not anymore_. 

Midway up our path to the stage, I saw the gleam of my mother’s hair and Robb’s curls in contrast to Father’s dark locks. Uncle Benjen sat nearby with either of my little brothers at his sides. Rickon’s shoulders were nearly level with our uncle’s. 

_How much time has passed?_

Bran looked eternally bored, as he often had since his accident. Yet as Death pulled us past my family, I swear my little brother turned his head to look right at me. I gaped, half-convinced it impossible, until Bran _smiled_. 

I narrowed my eyes and grumbled, “That little shit.” 

Death huffed with laughter but continued to pull us forward—always forward.

There at the front were seated the mass of graduates. A group stood and walked toward the stage in a line. My heart raced in my chest as Sansa walked confidently across the stage. Her red hair streamed beneath her cap like liquid flames. Her smile was ethereal and her eyes luminous, with the kind of knowing that only came from those who’d crossed Death’s path. 

I froze as my sister accepted her diploma before crossing the stage on its other side and lifting her gown to walk down the stairs. 

We were standing _right before her_. 

My sister approached, her joy evident, but something bittersweet lingered in her dimmed smile.

I shivered as Sansa walked _through_ us. 

Death’s hand tightened on mine as if to affirm that we were still here, that we were real. “Come,” the god said.

I closed my eyes and nodded as Death wove us through oblivion. 

The pain was gone this time, the pulling sensation more familiar, though no less strange. This time, I tried to peer into the in-between, to wonder how Death traveled through time and space. Flashes and peeks at people and places swirled around us in an incandescent blur, too quickly for the naked eye. 

My tears had dried as we finally landed in the godswood of Winterfell. I knew even before I turned to face the heart tree. I didn’t stumble as I had before, though I did lean back against Death's front a moment before taking in the nighttime scene. The god ran a cool hand over my other arm in what was meant a soothing gesture. I found myself smiling as I took in the scene around us.

Lanterns glowed along the path leading through the godswood, and to the tree where the man I'd once called my best friend waited before us. 

Gendry beamed as the others turned to face the approach of the winter bride. 

I covered my mouth as Father led Sansa up the aisle.

Bordering the path stood a crowd of faces I knew too well. 

She’d worn traditional white furs over a modern gown. Her smile was tremulous, but she still glowed with the force of a thousand stars. 

“This can’t be what she wants,” I hissed, unable to hold back my growing rage. 

Death squeezed my shoulder as if to steal my anger. Much as I wanted to hold onto the emotion, the god's touch was distracting, not as cold as it had felt before. In fact, the cold around us wasn’t biting as it should have been.

I frowned as Death leaned closer to whisper, “Their grief over the loss of you was what brought them together. The others have only dimmed memories of you, though I could do nothing for those who loved you most. I thought—that it would be kinder that way. I thought you would like to see their happiness.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat as I watched Sansa and Gendry join hands and give their vows. They looked older, I realized with a jolt. “How long has it been since her graduation?”

“Five years,” Death replied, the hood of their cloak brushing against my cheek like a cool kiss. 

I bit my lip and repressed a shudder. “What did you make them think happened to me?”

A whispered breath touched my skin. “You went to Braavos, but Sansa remembers what you asked of her the night you traded your life for hers. Both she and Gendry are convinced you went missing, the same as Jon Snow did years ago.” Here the voice broke slightly, in a manner entirely too human. 

Sansa and Gendry kissed to cheers, then turned to walk back through the godswood, our family following.

“She'll be happy with him, won't she?" I chewed on my lower lip a moment, my heart beating too loudly as I watched snowflakes fall with startling clarity. 

Death paused, in a silence filled with a sudden burst of northern lights in the skies above. The snowflakes caught the lights and refracted them in colors so pure, I clutched Death’s hand to my chest. 

“Would you like to see?” Death finally rasped. "One last time."

I turned, for the first time since I had made my bargain with Death. 

Instead of an empty black void, I was greeted with an achingly familiar face. His skin was an icy blue, lips faintly blackened, yet it was the glowing silver of his eyes that frightened me most of all. Yet somewhere behind the fear of something so wholly different to what I had known, was joy. Because I _knew_ the face of Death. I knew, and could not help my sob, any more than the warm hands which captured Death’s frozen face. 

His skin might as well have been ice, it nearly burned against the fiery warmth of my palms. Those glowing eyes widened, and Death jerked against my touch, but I held fast. Held tight, and strong as I closed the distance between us and whispered his name, “Jon?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Death asked me if I was willing to give my life for Sansa's—who had so much to live for—I hadn't hesitated.   
> Death, who had allowed me to see the happy pieces of my sister's unfinished life.   
> Death, who wore the face of the only person I'd truly loved. 

There are seemingly unimportant moments in life that stood out later. For me, those moments had always been more like impressions and sensations, instead of thoughts and meaningless words.

My first memory was of Jon Snow’s arms as he pulled me from the mud and into his embrace. He’d been so tall, and I so little. He'd seemed ethereal, godlike to me, even, like a knight from one of the septa’s songs. From that moment on, I had not wanted or needed anyone else. Not so long as Jon was there to protect me.

Other fleeting scraps of images and sensations stuck with me, the low soothing hum as Mother sang us to sleep, Father’s beard scratching my forehead as he whispered tales of the old gods of the North. And my siblings always in motion and laughter. In contrast to them, Jon shined in my memories like the moon among stars. After that first memory, there had always been Jon by my side, his larger hand clasping mine, his back rushing ahead and I, determined to keep up. 

As I grew into my full size, our friendship shifted from proverbial knight to best friend. No matter how often Sansa and I fought, or Catelyn criticized me, Jon listened. He would take me away to his special place in the ruins of old Winterfell. There, safe from prying eyes, we could simply _be_. Nothing we said or did was too outrageous or off-limits.

Eventually, he began to confide in me, too. How he knew Catelyn hated him for being Lyanna's bastard. How sometimes Ned felt more like a father to him than an uncle, yet he feared the future. 

_"Let's run away together,"_ I would say, just to see Jon's smile. 

_"If only we could, little love,"_ he always replied.

No matter how scared, or lost, or afraid we felt, we knew we'd never be alone again. 

Until the day Jon went into the wolfswood and didn’t come home. 

So many moments in my life passed too quickly, but that one awful day crawled too slowly. 

Father tried to coax me from the gates of Winterfell. _“Jory and Ser Roderick will find him. Now, come inside little wolf. Jon would not want you to freeze.”_

 _“No!_ _I am_ not _leaving until Jon comes home. He'll be back any minute now, I know it."_

Father sighed but didn't try to convince me again, only sat beside me, his burly arm over my narrow shoulders in solidarity.

Jon never came home.

I waited for days by that gate, always afraid to leave for long, else I'd miss his return.

Looking back on those days, when I refused to give up, knowing in my heart he just _couldn't_ be gone...

I had tried so hard not to think of it. How quickly Catelyn was to begin clearing out Jon's room. 

_"He's coming home!"_ I had screamed, before grabbing the box she'd tried to toss out, and running away. I ran until I found refuge in the ruins, in _our_ place. And I treasured the jumper that smelled like him, wrapped myself in the sturdy wool, then carefully drank in every drawing his sketchbooks revealed. So many were of wolves, and the Winterfell before, of dragons and characters from the old tales. But most of them were of me. 

They never found his body, but they made a place for my cousin in the crypts beside Aunt Lyanna.

I had four siblings, and two parents that loved me. I was born to one of the great houses of Westeros and had no reason to hate my life. But something changed in me after Jon walked out of my life and didn't come back. We had done everything together. Now there was just me, and I’d never felt more alone. 

I took it out on Sansa the most. Because she and Mother had never liked Jon, and I hated them for pushing him away.

 _“It’s your fault he’s gone!”_ I once screamed at Catelyn.

I’d stopped calling her Mother, the day I heard her say it was probably for the best Jon was gone.

Sansa had come to Catelyn’s defense, of course. _“You’re so bloody selfish, Arya! Y_ _ou act like the rest of us don’t mourn or miss Jon.”_

I left an imprint as red as my sister’s hair when I slapped her. 

I barely made passing marks high enough to make it to University. I wouldn’t have gone at all, had it not been for the fencing master Father forced me to take lessons from. _“Jon would not want you to waste your life away,”_ Father had claimed. 

I knew it wasn’t natural, for me to feel like half of a person with Jon gone. I hadn’t _died_ and no one really understood my melancholy. They didn’t know my life passed in an endless succession of gray days. Hard as I tried, I could only find color when I looked through the many sketchbooks Jon had left behind. 

When Death asked me if I was willing to give my life for Sansa's—who had _so much_ to live for—I hadn't hesitated. 

Death, who had allowed me to see the happy pieces of my sister's unfinished life. 

Death, who wore the face of the only person I'd truly loved. 

"Jon," I whispered his name like a prayer in the godswood. 

The body he wore was marked by death, but it was Jon Snow that looked back at me with parted blue lips, and ragged breaths. He leaned back from my touch, and he breathed as if he hadn't in years. 

_So what if he hasn't? He's here!_

The hood of his cloak fell back as I pulled Jon in, invaded his space. I needed to be closer, to feel his body against mine, to feel whole again. 

I laughed through my tears while Jon allowed himself to be drawn in. 

"Arya," his voice cracked as his cool forehead pressed against mine. 

My eyes fluttered shut as his voice washed over me. "Hold me, Jon."

A pause, and then Jon stopped breathing as his hands slid slowly, cautiously about my lower back. 

I took the final step that closed the remaining distance until my head fit perfectly under his chin. I pushed aside the stray thought of the fact he was still _Death_ somehow, as I slipped my hands beneath his cloak to grasp at his shirt, to feel the muscles of his back contract. I buried my nose in his chest and frowned as I couldn't find _his_ scent anymore. Instead, I breathed in the wolfswood. 

I opened my eyes and caught the bloody stare of the heart tree, watching us with too-aware eyes. "Jon, please tell me this is real." 

A huff of cool air brushed against the top of my head, and then he turned his cheek to lay against my head. His arms tightened, enveloping me more fiercely as he replied, "I'm here, Arya." He hesitated and then the coolest brush of his lips grazed the crown of my head as he added, "I've always been here."

Had he seen all the sleepless nights I'd spent shivering in our secret place? Did he know the only comfort I still sometimes found was looking through his sketchbooks again? Did he know I'd always loved him far more than I should? 

"Jon," I choked back a sob as the lonely emptiness I'd lived with stole my breath with a vengeance. 

His embrace tightened further, almost to the point of pain as he rasped, "I know."

No heart beat within the chest my ear pressed against, and there were too many questions building at the back of my mind. But they could wait. 

The how and the why didn't matter, did they? Not really. 

The fact was, I had done more with my death than in life, and I couldn't regret any of it. Not if it led me right here, back to Jon. 

I pulled away from my stare-off with the bloody heart tree and smiled as I met resistance. 

Death, it seemed, was not ready to let me go. 

I squeezed his waist until Jon allowed me to escape, just enough to look up into his eerily luminous silver eyes. 

"You are mine, Jon Snow," I said. 

His black eyebrows rose in surprise, and then a slow crooked smile melted the cold of his stoic face. Under the northern lights, reflecting off the falling snow around us a thousand-fold, his smile stole my breath away. "I always was yours, Arya, just as you will always be mine."

I nodded, and the air seemed to shudder and still as I whispered, "Yours." 

Jon's hand ran over my frame with wonder in his eyes. His voice was hoarse as he spoke. "I was not ready to leave you, Arya. It was not my choice to die. When Death came, I begged and swore on my soul, whatever it would take to stay in this mortal plane." 

I closed my eyes as his hand caressed my cheek. "I never believed you were gone. I would have _felt_ it if you had really left, Jon." I clutched his hand to my cheek as I opened my eyes and hissed, "So many times it felt like you were still _here..._ " 

Jon's nose nudged mine. "I can never leave this place, Arya. No matter how much time passes, I will spend eternity ferrying souls. It is not a life I wanted for you, love."

I slipped my hands around his neck. "This _is_ the life I want, Jon. I don't care how long you ferry souls, so long as you keep me with you. I am not letting you leave me again, not _ever."_ I gasped as his arms suddenly tightened about my waist and then I was lifted in the air, our gazes level.

"Never leaving you..." His lips brushed mine, and I moaned into his mouth as he added, "gods be damned, I swear it, Arya." 

My back hit against something hard, and Jon swallowed my gasp with his kisses and his tongue. 

Somewhat distantly, I realized we were snogging against the hear tree and giggled. The sound was foreign and yet I only felt joy as Jon pressed kisses down my neck, as his hands caressed my body. An eternity of this? 

Jon had given his soul to linger, to wait for _me._

He felt so different, and yet the same. He tasted like snow and blood and ash, but I did not care. 

I tilted my head back to watch the burning red of the weirwood leaves gleam in moonlight above us and said, "I love you, Jon."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I suppose we really are all just stories in the end, and mine had only begun.

Time had no real meaning when you had eternity. 

Death taught me that, as he taught me to live this new existence traveling between moments and the spaces in-between. Just like when I had been a little girl, Jon showed me the life of the old gods was not all-powerful. We had limits, and rules of a different kind from mortals. But there was peace in our purpose, in bringing souls from one world to the next. 

_Valar Dohaeris_.

All men must serve, but gods most of all. 

We could never fully cross that threshold, but I didn't mind. Any more than I minded living in a palace made of ice so far to the north, I doubted anyone living had been before.

I could say more, about how we weren't the only gods of death, but that is not this story. In the end, none of it mattered, because no matter where or when we went, Jon and I had each other. We finished each other's sentences when we cared to speak at all. Some days, we only spoke through touch and taste. Others, we traveled to stolen moments that did not belong to us.

And so Jon didn't think it strange when I asked if we could visit Sansa, one last time. 

_"It does no good to spend too much time with the living,"_ Jon once cautioned. 

_"Clearly you broke that rule,"_ I had replied. 

Yet I had listened after a fashion. We didn't go home too often. 

I couldn't say why I needed to see my sister now, after all this time. 

But Jon only squeezed my hand and nodded when I said, "I want to see her happy."

He was older than me, and the gods had granted him more power, far more than any other we knew. Jon shared this power with me, to keep me tied to him. 

I smiled as the familiar slip and tug at my navel began, drawing us through time and space, to a place Jon instinctively sought. 

We landed in a strange castle I had never seen before. The steady crashing of waves against rocks met my ears, and I turned around to take in the room we had arrived in. Judging from the modern lighting and updated furniture, we were at the right time.

I wasn't expecting the glowing hearth, and an overabundance of toys strewn about the carpeted room. 

I glanced over my shoulder to warmth and reassurance in Jon's luminous blue eyes. 

"Go on," he whispered. 

I squeezed his hand and nodded before letting go and stepping forward. 

It had taken some time for me to get used to the new way of seeing, the extra colors, and way objects and especially people seemed to glow with life. The world was far more beautiful than I'd ever imagined. 

Of all the places and colors I had seen, however, none quite matched the red of Sansa's hair against the firelight. 

I was smiling before I'd come around the other side of the chair my sister rocked in. 

My heart leaped to my throat, and I pressed a hard hand to it as if it were still truly beating. 

A black-haired baby rested in my sister's arms, bright blue Tully eyes open, and watching her as Sansa carded her fingers through its hair and spoke low. "Have I told you the tale, of how Death once came for your mummy, little one?" 

I held my breath. I didn't need to breathe anymore, but the instinct remained, just as my eyes burned as I crouched to the floor between the fireplace and my sister to listen. 

"Once upon a time, there lived two sisters. They were princesses of the North, but no two sisters could have been more different. One was born with the wolfsblood in her icy veins, but the other was fire-kissed and longed for things she couldn't have. They often fought over silly things. But all children grow up eventually, and when the fire sister fell ill, the ice sister chose to stay at her side. For a time, this gave the fire sister courage. But the gods can be cruel, my love, and they coveted what they could not have.

The old gods ruled the lands long before the Seven came. But as time passed, their power faded. Much of their influence was taken when men burned the weirwood trees. But the North remembers, and that is why the king taught his children how to honor the old gods. The fire sister preferred the Seven, of course." 

Sansa smiled at this and I couldn't help echoing her expression. It was one of many topics we'd always disagreed on. 

"But the ice sister believed in the old gods. And when Death came for fire, the ice sister begged Death to take her instead."

How did she know? I almost turned to find Jon, but couldn't look away as Sansa shared our story with the nephew I could never know.

Sansa looked up and for a moment, it felt as though she could see me sitting here, listening. For her blue eyes seemed to brighten, her mouth quirking to a smile as she continued to rock her now-sleeping babe. "The ice sister joined the old gods that day, but the fire sister never forgot. She would do her very best to live a good life, for both of them." 

My sister's smile fell and her gaze sharpened, as she whispered, "I hope you've had a good life, sister, as I have."

I blinked and icy tears slipped over my cheeks. "I did. I hope you have too, San." 

Sansa smiled and bowed her head as she began to softly hum an old song. 

I closed my eyes and tried to imprint the sound of my sister's voice to memory for all the years to come. Time would take her from me eventually. We couldn't always come back to the past, Jon had said. 

I gasped as cold hands slipped about my waist and Jon pressed a kiss to my neck. "Ready to go home?" 

I opened my eyes to find my sister gone, and the room around us covered in dust and silence. Mortal lives were as fleeting as they were beautiful. I couldn't help my smile as I looked at the place my sister had once sat. I would always remember. And because of Sansa, my nephew would know me in a way.

What if that was how all legends, like my sister's _Dream of Spring,_ truly began? 

I suppose we really are all just stories in the end, and mine had only begun.

I turned to Jon and returned his embrace with a sigh. "I'm ready." 

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Spring Jonrya Week :D This story is a bit different from my past Jonrya fics. I took some inspiration from Meet Joe Black, where Death takes over a man and falls in love with a mortal. My version of Death is more of a perfect mash-up of the old god and Jon, of course. And this is the first fic I've made Sansa a central character. I loved how Sansa and Arya came together in the show, and in my head-cannon, and I wanted to have a story where they come together as sisters and Starks. The tone of this is a bit darker and lighter in odd ways (sorry, my brain is weird!) but I hope most of you enjoyed. I can't wait to read all your fics and see your works shared on Tumblr. I'll be back on Day 4 with more! See you there and happy reading, friends :)


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